ANÁLISIS DE LAS INVERSIONES

apparently propositional cognitive knowledge — the example given is a teacher's

knowledge of a faculty handbook — can be influenced by related beliefs — in this case

about the effectiveness of the school principal (1992, p. 310). Day and Leitch describe

how there is neurological evidence to demonstrate that the emotional mind can 'swamp'

the rational mind 'when we are upset, distressed by strong emotions or indeed in touch

with our passions' so that 'powerful emotions ... disrupt thinking and, therefore,

learning' (2001, p. 406; and see Goleman, 1995; Damasio, 2003). Thus, therefore,

memory is also affected (Welch, 2000, p. 8). Nespor has also pointed out the effect of

the emotions on how we store and retrieve knowledge in the teaching environment

(1987, pp. 324-325).

The act of teaching itself is also a mix of cognition and affect (Calderhead and Gates, 1993; Day, 1999) and there is a growing acknowledgement that emotional aspects of teaching are highly relevant. For instance, Wagner observed that teachers' reported thinking was 'often full of emotions, anxieties and inconsistencies' (1987, p. 11), frequently expressing conflict between moral and practical considerations, which she called 'knots'. These were often rooted in previous experiences and, she recommended, should be confronted rather than explained away. More recently, in a journal issue devoted to the emotions in teaching, Nias (1996) identified three main reasons for making the claim that `affectivity is of fundamental importance in teaching and to teachers.' Firstly, teachers feel, 'often passionately', about various aspects of their work. This is a circular feature in that because teachers feel so strongly they therefore invest heavily in it, so that then they 'feel profoundly about their work because they invest heavily in it'. Secondly, the connection between cognition and emotion means that 'one cannot separate feeling from perception, affectivity from judgement' (also see Eisner, 1996). Therefore, 'one cannot help teachers develop their classroom and management skills without also addressing their emotional reactions and responses and the attitudes, values and beliefs which underlie these.' Finally, both cognition and feeling are indivisible from 'the social and cultural forces which help to form them and which are in turn shaped by them' (Nias, 1996, pp. 293-294).

Andy Hargreaves has been particularly instrumental in promoting recent interest in the affective nature of teaching with his work relating to educational change, maintaining that 'Emotions are at the heart of teaching' (1998, p. 835). Hargreaves considers relationships between teachers and pupils call not just for emotional sensitivity and understanding but also 'immense amounts of emotional labor' (ibid.), reflecting Nias's remark about 'massive investment' (1989, p. 2, quoted above). Hargreaves describes

how these emotions act as a filter to teachers' responses to educational change, thus influencing planning, teaching strategies and routines (1998, p. 842, for example).

Another of Hargreaves' basic precepts is that the 'emotions of teaching ... are also shaped by the moral purposes of those who teach and the extent to which the conditions of teachers' work permit them to fulfill those purposes' (1998, p. 840). This can have a positive effect since, as Nias comments, teachers 'experience self-esteem when they feel that they are acting consistently with their beliefs and values' (1996, p. 297). On the other hand, an inability to achieve such purposes, which comprise a teacher's fundamental beliefs relating to the nature of teaching, can lead to teachers experiencing emotions such as shame (Bibby, 2002), guilt (A. Hargreaves, 1994) and even grief (Nias, 1993). Bibby's study focused on the shame experienced by generalist primary teachers with regard to their maths subject knowledge. As she says, 'Traditional views of mathematics are that it is an unemotional subject ... however ... for many people it is experienced in highly emotional ways' (2002, p. 706), partly related to the context in which the subject has been learned, indicating affect is both part of and is developed by the overall context of learning. She also suggests that if subject knowledge 'is mediated by powerful feelings rooted in [teachers'] autobiographies', then that affects 'the ways in which that knowledge is used professionally in the classroom' (2002, p. 706). Bibby reports a body of research on affective issues in mathematics education, and there are a few examples of research mentioning similar aspects in music education (for example, Hennessy, 2000; and Mills, 1989). In other words, music as a subject is likely to be an emotional concern for the teachers involved in this study not only because of the inherent emotional links within music itself (see section 2: 5.2 below) or because of the many ways in which teaching itself involves emotional aspects, but also because of the

attitudes and beliefs teachers may have concerning music as a subject, influenced by their previous experiences, in and out of school.

Also relevant is the work of Daniel Goleman on emotional intelligence (for example, 1996; 1998), which, he argues, can play a crucial role in thought and success. Emotional intelligence involves self-awareness and appropriate management of one's own emotions as well as recognising emotions in others and handling relationships — involving managing emotions in others (see, for instance, 1996, pp. 44-45). Although it is possible to criticise the view that emotional intelligence can be reduced to a set of trainable competencies that ignores issues of gender, class or race (Boler, 1999), nevertheless the principles are gaining widespread interest in all phases of education (see, for example, Kingston, 2005) and Eraut includes 'Handling emotions' as part of the personal development aspect of informal learning in the workplace (Eraut, 2004, p. 265) .

It therefore seems that 'To ignore the place of emotion in reflection, in, on and about teaching and learning is to fail to appreciate its potential for positively or negatively affecting the quality of the classroom experience for both teachers and learners' (Day, 1999, p. 33).

In summary, teachers' knowledge can be influenced by various contextual aspects. Alongside the nested institutional context, and inseparably interrelated, are features from the teacher's personal nature and life (past and present). All such aspects have been found to have potential impact, and therefore should be kept in mind in any investigation of teachers' thinking. Each teacher's context will be unique to him or her, partly because each teacher's previous and current experience is unique, but also

because each teacher's conception of context is unique. However, just as Nias identified patterns in the individual teachers she studied (1989, p. 26, see above), Golby considered that there could be teachers with similar outlooks because although teachers' experience is 'subjectively unique to them' it is also part of the 'collective history of schooling' (1996, p. 425).